Skip to Content

Resource hub

Charting Progress 2 Reporting Regions WMS 2022

Abstract

The 2010 Charting Progress 2 assessment (UKMMAS 2010) subdivided UK waters into eight regions to assess how human use and other pressures were affecting the productivity of UK seas. Regional boundaries were developed in 2009, adapting 'regional seas' previously identified on the basis of physical and biological biogeography by the Review of Marine Nature Conservation (RMNC) 2004. The CP2 'Reporting Regions' have subsequently informed a variety of MPA designation, marine assessment and reporting purposes and continue to be used, for example in the selection of Highly Protected Marine Areas, indicators for the ecological status of the water environment, and the aggregation of marine biotope sensitivity information.

JNCC updated the CP2 Reporting Regions dataset in 2022, making improvements to the inner (coastal) and outer (UK maritime limit) boundaries of the reporting regions. This incorporated up-to-date UK Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf limits and mean high water (springs) coastlines across the UK. No substantive changes were made to the biogeographic boundaries, but these were edited to join up with updated coastlines (as required) and minor topological issues (e.g. overlaps between polygons) were also addressed. See lineage for further details.

Note that the use of the CP2 Reporting Regions (or other biogeographic regions and assessment units) by JNCC, the SNCBs and other ALBs will vary by purpose. Variations of the CP2 Reporting Regions may be used for assessment purposes.

Data notes and limitations:

  • open data coastline datasets used in the 2022 update were of medium spatial resolution, lacking detail in some areas (e.g. sea lochs and islets in the Hebrides, Orkneys and Shetland, pladdies in Strangford Loch and islets around Northern Ireland).
  • part of the Scottish Continental Shelf (region 7) boundary was originally drawn to align with the UK Territorial Waters limit around Orkney and Fair Isle. This section of boundary has not been updated and therefore remains consistent with the biogeographic boundary created in 2009.
  • in the absence of formally agreed maritime limits, linework from the original 2009 CP2 Reporting Regions data set has been retained to represent the boundary between the Northern Ireland Inshore Region and Republic of Ireland inshore waters.

Resource type Dataset

Topic category Boundaries

Reference date 2022·12·07

Lineage
Updates undertaken by JNCC in 2022: • updating the outer maritime boundaries of CP2 regions to align with the UK Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) limits that came into force in 2013. EEZ and UKCS limit data were obtained from the UKHO ADMIRALTY service (https://data.admiralty.co.uk/) in July 2022. • subdividing the Scottish Continental Shelf (region 7) and the Atlantic North-West Approaches, Rockall Trough and Faroe Shetland Channel (region 8) by maritime limits (UKCS, EEZ and the ‘Special Area’ of shared jurisdiction with The Faroes, for ease of use according to different definitions of UK waters. Note that the biogeographic boundaries between regions remain unchanged. • updating the Isle of Man Territorial Sea limit (to exclude Isle of Man waters from region 6), using UKHO ADMIRALTY data (https://data.admiralty.co.uk/) obtained in July 2022. • incorporating a more up-to-date and (in most places) improved resolution coastline for England, Scotland and Wales. A mean high water (springs) 'BoundaryLine' dataset (version date 05-2022) was obtained from the Ordnance Survey https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/BoundaryLine. • incorporating a more up-to-date and (in most places)improved resolution coastline for Northern Ireland. A mean high water 'NI outline' dataset (version 1.0, dated 23 June 2022) was obtained from the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@land-property/osni-open-data-largescale-boundaries-ni-outline1 • minor edits to CP2 reporting region boundaries to ensure they joined with updated coastlines • topological corrections to CP2 reporting region boundaries, e.g. where minor gaps/slivers or overlaps occurred between regions. Originating sources: Defra. 2004. Review of Marine Nature Conservation. Working Group Report to Government. UKMMAS. 2010. Charting Progress 2: the state of UK seas. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20141203170840/http://chartingprogress.defra.gov.uk/resources

Responsible organisation
Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC publisher

Limitations on public access There are no public access constraints to this data.

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0, with the following attribution: © JNCC. Contains Ordnance Survey (OS), Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) and United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) data © Crown copyright and database right 2023.

Metadata date 2023·07·05

Metadata point of contact
Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC

Temporal extent 2009·· 2022·12·07

Spatial extent
North 63.887067
South 47.43539
East 3.39855
West -25.13538
Back to top